You are groping down a dark alleyway in the French quarter of New Orleans, driven by terror,
hounded by the curse of the papaloi, the curse from which there is no escape.
Escape, produced and directed by William N. Robeson, and carefully contrived to free you
from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure.
Tonight we escape into two worlds, one of modern jazz, the other of primitive voodoo,
and to a doomed man who brought them together, as William Irish imagined it in his eerie story,
Papa Benjamin.
All is police department, fourth precinct, Sergeant Tollover speaking.
Now, yeah, well, pick him up on a drunk seven, two, three.
Right.
Yes, sir, what can I do for you?
Are you in charge here?
Yeah.
Hey, aren't you Eddie Block, the band leader?
That's right.
Hey, Joe, look who's here, Eddie Block.
Well, never thought we'd get a visit from a big celebrity like you, Mr. Block.
And at four o'clock in the morning.
I suppose, though, this is just the shank of the evening for a big shot orchestra leader.
Well, what can we do for you, Mr. Block?
I just killed a man.
You're kidding.
I tell you, I've just killed a man.
I guess you've been working too hard, Mr. Block.
You're imagining things.
Here, here's the gun.
Look at it.
Sit down, Mr. Block.
Better have a drink of water.
You'll feel better.
Oh, no.
I'm all right.
Sergeant.
Yeah?
This gun's been used all right.
Smell.
Hmm.
Was it an accident, Mr. Block?
No.
Well, who'd you use it on?
Who was it?
I don't know his name.
They call him Papa Benjamin.
Sounds like it.
Yeah.
White man?
No, he was a Negro.
Oh, well, now, in New Orleans...
Oh, no, no, no.
It was nothing like that.
Well, what was he doing to you?
He was killing me.
Killing you?
But how?
Look at me.
I used to weigh 200 pounds.
I'm down to 102.
Well, how?
How was he killing you?
Would you believe in anything you can't see, can't hear, can't touch?
Well...
I've been to the biggest doctors in the world.
They don't believe me.
How can I expect you to?
Simply say I'm cracked and let it go at that.
I don't want to spend the rest of my life in an asylum.
Oh, look, Mr. Block.
You say he was a Negro named Papa Benjamin.
Yeah, yeah.
He was an old man.
He was a black man.
He was a black man.
He was a black man.
He was a black man.
He was a black man.
He was a black man.
You say he was a Negro named Papa Benjamin.
Yeah, yeah.
He was an old, old man.
80, maybe 90.
Skin and bones.
He could hardly walk.
And I shot him.
You sure?
You sure you killed him?
Yeah, of course.
Well, where?
I don't know.
Exactly.
In Littleback Alley in the few car... near Congo Square.
Well, supposing you take us there.
Can you do that?
Maybe we'll find out this is just a bad dream.
This is the alley.
To the right between the buildings.
All right, let's go.
You pack, Sergeant.
Catch cold without it.
Don't go back there, honey.
Quiet, you.
Oh, cops.
Nice neighborhood.
This is it.
In that door and up the stairs.
Come on.
Oh, no, no.
Don't make me go up there again, please.
Better come, Mr. Block.
You're showing us.
Hey, flesh and life.
There's somebody here on the stairs.
Huh?
Where is he?
He won't bother.
He's dead drunk.
Step over him and let's go.
This ain't the most pleasant neighborhood if I'm calling him.
Is this it?
Yeah.
In that door.
Come on.
Better call the commissioner.
Mr. Block wasn't kidding.
This man's dead.
But why?
Why?
Because he was killing me, commissioner.
It was self-defensive.
He never came near me once.
I was the one who went to him.
I offered him 3,000, 10,000, any amount, and he refused.
I said, I'm sorry.
I said, I'm sorry.
I said, I'm sorry.
I said, I'm sorry.
I said, I'm sorry.
I said, I'm sorry.
Finally I offered him my gun and asked him to shoot me with it,
to get it over with quickly and not to drag it out any longer.
Then when he said no, you shot him.
Yeah.
So you can lock me up now.
Mr. Block, do you think we want to hang a murder rap on you,
one of the most popular celebrities in the United States?
Use your head.
Now, I'm trying to find an out for you.
He was killing me.
Look, an 80-year-old colored man who's so feeble
that he can't even get up the stairs by himself,
who has to have his food pulled up to him in a basket,
is killing who?
A stumble bum his own age?
No.
Mr. Eddie Block, the top bandleader of America,
who can name his own price anyway,
who has about everything a man can want.
Tell me just one thing, Mr. Block.
How was he killing you?
By thinking thought ways of death had reached me through the air.
Now, Mr. Block...
You want to hush the whole thing up, don't you?
I'm not going to hush the whole thing up, Mr. Block,
but I'm going to get the whole story,
so you might as well start telling me from the beginning.
All right.
Began one night about two years ago.
We were playing at Maxon's on Charles Street.
We were just another band.
Eddie Block and his chips.
Judy Jarvis, my wife, did the vocals,
but we weren't setting the world on fire.
Business was so bad, I knew what to expect
when I got a call from the manager one night after closing time.
Robert.
Oh, hi, Eddie.
I thought we'd better have a little talk.
Ah, it's that bad, huh?
We took in 4,500 this week.
Yeah, I see, and you can cancel my contract
any time it falls under 5,000.
I, uh, get it.
Eddie, they can get the same liquor and sandwiches anywhere,
but they'll go where the band has something.
Tonight there were more waiters in the place than customers.
Judy didn't even get a hand.
It's not her fault. I know it's not her fault.
She's okay, but...
Well, I'm asking you, what's wrong?
I don't know. I'm getting the latest arrangement
sent to me from New York.
We sweat our heads bald rehearsing.
This is New Orleans, practically the cradle of jazz.
You've got to give them something new.
Well, when do I leave?
Well, finish the week out.
See if you can do something about it by Monday.
If not, I'll have to wear St. Louis to get Kruger's band.
I'm sorry, Eddie, but...
Oh, that's okay.
You're not running a charity bazaar.
But I didn't feel so cocky about it.
It looked like we were on the skids.
The band just didn't seem to have it.
And I wasn't good enough to figure out why
and pull them out of it.
I was feeling pretty low
when I went back to the deserted bandstand
to pick up some music.
The place was dark and empty,
except for the
The place was dark and empty,
except for the
The place was dark and empty,
except for a couple of scrub women cleaning up.
A dark nightclub can be an eerie place sometimes.
I got that feeling just before I saw it.
Saw it lying on the floor between the stands
with a severed chicken claw
with a red ribbon tied around it.
I almost laughed.
How did that thing get there?
Then I picked it up and tossed it out of the floor
where the scrub women were cleaning up.
I certainly wasn't expecting the reaction I got.
They took one look, turned, and ran out.
I just recovered from that surprise
and was bending down to pick up some music
that had slipped to the floor
when I heard someone come in.
I guess I was pretty well hidden from view.
Anyway, he didn't see me.
It was Johnny Stats, my drummer,
and he was acting funny.
Looking intently at the floor,
searching for something.
Suddenly he spotted this chicken claw on the floor
and grabbed it up with a terrific sigh of relief,
stuffed it into his pocket, and walked out.
What I did then, I did on a strange impulse
that changed the whole course of my life.
I followed Johnny Stats.
I suppose I just meant to catch up with him
and have a cup of coffee with him somewhere
and ask about the chicken claw.
But as I followed him farther and farther down
into the view carray, down to Congo Square,
it was a growing curiosity that kept me on his trail.
When he turned into that dark alleyway,
I stopped and debated.
I felt like an eavesdropper, and yet something drew me on.
And I walked up that dark alley.
I passed that one lighted window.
Don't go no further, honey.
But I went on,
through a sort of tunnel into another alleyway,
and then I stopped.
Ahead of me, Johnny Stats stood before a dark,
dismal-looking old wreck of a building.
Suddenly he whistled quietly.
A gigantic man appeared out of the shadows.
Johnny handed in the chicken claw
and was motioned into the building.
And then I heard sounds coming from the upstairs of that building.
A throbbing drum, a wailing,
an unearthly sound, and yet wonderful.
An exotic, fascinating rhythm.
This was music.
Something new, something sensational,
something that would set New Orleans on its ear
and put Eddie Block in the big time.
I had to get in there and hear it.
I was mighty busy for the next five minutes.
I ran back down the alley,
overturning five or six garbage cans
before I found what I needed.
Then back to that lighted window in the alley
and a five-spot in exchange for a red ribbon.
Then I was back at the dark building,
walking up to that menacing shadow.
Light up. Let me see your face.
Okay, okay.
That knife, my ribs are tender.
Your face never been here before?
My friend Johnny Stats up there. He'll tell you.
Mr. Johnny, your friend? Yes, you'll come?
This, uh, this chicken claw told me to come.
Papa Benjamin send you there?
Certainly. You'll make me late.
Papa Benjamin won't like that.
All right, go along in.
We're singing all New Orleans.
I groped up the stairs,
expecting to feel his knife in my back.
But I got to the top safely.
Cautiously I opened the door and slipped in.
Damba la ikantu
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Damba la ikantu
How many are you?
Ya ya da ba ya ya oh
Ya ya da ba ya ya oh
Damba la ikantu
Damba la ikantu
The room was full of people.
They were in such a state of frenzy, I wasn't even noticed.
I slipped into a corner and slid down by the wall, sitting on the floor.
That was a sight I'll never forget.
Wild, fantastic, hideous, revolting, fascinating.
In the center of the room was an incredibly old man,
naked to the waist, wearing a hideous mask,
and holding a live chicken.
There were wild gestures, weird incantations,
frantic dancing, shouting, rolling of eyes.
There was blood.
And always there was the chant.
Nobody noticed me.
After a moment I took a piece of copy paper out of my pocket
and began putting down the notes.
It was wonderful, fantastic and wonderful.
In ten minutes I had it,
and I'd seen enough, enough for a lifetime of nightmares.
I began to feel sick, I wanted to get out.
I started to stand up.
Suddenly the room went dead.
A stranger is here.
His bony arm stretched out straight from the shoulder,
pointing at me like a narrow.
And there was blood on it.
What you do here?
I...
I know this man. Let me find out.
No one moved.
There was no sound in the room as Johnny Stats came over and squatted beside me.
You're in terrible trouble, Eddie.
I don't know if I can get you out of it.
What is this, Stats?
What are you doing here?
There's no time to talk now. You've got to do something quicker.
You'll be a dead man.
Why?
I'm in the very heart of New Orleans.
I wouldn't dare.
Listen, you've seen enough tonight. You know better.
Eddie, there's only one way.
What?
Join, become one of us.
Oh, no.
It's the only way, Eddie. I can't save you.
You'd better hurry up, because unless you do you'll never get out of here alive.
You know what this is, don't you?
This is voodoo.
Okay, sure. I'll join up. Why not?
Wait a minute, Eddie.
There's a lot more to it than you think.
Unless you're serious, it'd be better to get cut to pieces right now.
All right, don't worry. I'm serious.
All right.
Papaloy, his spirit wishes to join our spirits.
The old man burned some feathers while the others watched silently.
Then he nodded.
It came out all right.
He reads them. The spirits are willing.
There were other things. Rituals, ceremonies, another sacrifice.
Then as the chanting started again, they brought me the sacrificial bowl.
I didn't have to be told what was in it.
I started to draw back.
Drink, Eddie, drink or they'll kill you on the spot.
Late next morning, the band assembled at Maxim's for a rehearsal.
When Johnny Stats got there, he found another drummer sitting in his place.
Naturally, he came to me.
What's all this about, Eddie?
I don't want any voodoo lover in my band. That's all Stats.
Here's a check for two weeks' salary.
So you're crossing them, are you?
Why, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes for all the gold and port knocks.
If you mean that bad dream last night, I haven't told anybody and I won't.
I'd be laughed at. I'm only remembering what I can use of it.
The jungle is just trees to me, the Congo a river,
and the nighttime is just a time for electric lights.
Hey, but this new number you're going to rehearse this morning.
I said I'd remember what I can use.
Listen, Eddie, that chant is sacred. It's secret.
It was secret.
Eddie, don't do it. Look.
Here's a couple of C-notes. Hand them these.
That ought to pay off my dues from now to doomsday.
And I don't want a receipt.
And if they try putting poison in my orange juice, they'll end up in a chain.
It's not that easy, Eddie. You're one of us now.
Oh, get out.
Okay.
Goodbye, dead man.
Graham, the manager of the club, changed his mind about canceling our contract
when he heard us rehearse the chant.
Instead, he spent five Gs in publicity.
And Saturday night was set for the big unveiling.
It seemed like all New Orleans tried to jam into Maxims.
Came to hear the voodoo chant. The real thing.
Just before we were ready to hit it, Judy came up to me.
Eddie, listen. Let's not do it.
Oh, what do you mean, baby, not do it? This is it.
This is our ticket to the big time. It'll be a sensation.
Yeah, I know, but I... I got a funny feeling.
And look, I found this under your dressing room door just now.
It sounds like a warning. Somebody doesn't want you to play that number.
Let me see.
You can summon the spirits, but can you dismiss them again?
Think well.
Forget it, baby. Stats is trying to scare me because I fired him.
Ladies and gentlemen...
Come on, honey, let's go. They're waiting.
Maxims takes great pleasure in bringing you a historic moment in musical history.
You're about to hear, for the first time anywhere, the voodoo chant.
The age-old ceremonial rhythm no one but the initiated has ever heard before.
This is the real thing.
An accurate transcription, not a note's been changed.
So, ladies and gentlemen, Eddie Block and his chips present for the first time anywhere...
the voodoo chant.
The sensation. They've been crazy.
They screamed for more, but we were playing at Cagy.
Once a night, that'd pack them in.
After it was over, I went back to our dressing room.
Judy got there before me.
She was reading a newspaper somebody had brought in.
Eddie, listen.
Oh, baby, you were wonderful, and we wowed them.
We're in the money now.
Yeah, Eddie, but...
Oh, boy, am I tired.
I feel more tired than I've ever felt in my life.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Oh, boy, am I tired. I feel more tired than I've ever felt in my life.
Nervous strain, I guess, huh? Let down.
Eddie, look here in the paper.
Oh, who cares about the paper?
Eddie, it's Johnny Stetts.
Huh?
He's dead. He drowned himself in Lake Pontchartrain this afternoon.
He... this afternoon?
Then that note, it wasn't Johnny.
Oh, well, look, Eddie, you can't blame yourself.
Me? Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Of course not, but I think I know who to blame.
What do you mean?
Nothing, nothing.
Eddie, why don't you lie down and rest for a few minutes?
You look worn out.
Yeah, I am. I... I feel dead.
Here, let me take off your coat.
Oh, be careful.
What's the matter?
I don't know.
Funny thing, while I was waving the baton on the chant,
I felt something, a sharp pain there in my back,
like a pin or something stuck in me.
I don't feel anything there now. Maybe it slipped down.
I don't know.
Couldn't have been much.
There. Now, you just lie down. You'll feel better in a few minutes.
You've been working too hard.
You should relax now. Maybe take a few days off.
Hey, Eddie, look here.
Where did this come from?
What?
It's a little doll that was lying on the dressing table.
Why, Eddie, it looks just like you.
Let me see.
That's funny.
Look, there in the back.
There's a little pin sticking in the back.
Yes.
That's right where I felt the pain.
That started it.
The next day, I had a backache.
Later, there was a numbness that spread to my shoulders, arms, legs.
I felt tired all the time, listless, dead.
I began to lose weight.
I couldn't get Johnny Stats out of my mind.
He'd introduced me to them, vouched for me, and he'd committed suicide.
He knew. He hadn't waited.
I decided to get out of New Orleans.
I went to New York.
Playing the chant, of course, I had to.
It was my biggest asset now.
But nothing changed.
I was losing weight from a Husky 200 down to 160.
I couldn't sleep.
Maybe if I put an ocean between.
I took an offer in London, toured the Continent, away a year.
I was an international hit now, the biggest attraction in music.
But I was down to 110, dying on my feet.
The doctors couldn't figure it out.
Reynolds in London told me.
You're as normal, Mr. Block, as anyone I ever examined.
You're so well-balanced that you haven't even got that extra little touch of imagination
most actors and musicians have.
I guess that's true, Doctor. I'm just mediocre.
And yet, you might say, my success is killing me.
And so, after two years, I finally realized it was no use.
I came back.
Back to New Orleans.
Back to the dark alleyway down near Congo Square.
I could just barely drag myself along.
But I had to see Papa Benjamin.
I slowly climbed the stairs, up to that lonesome door.
I went in.
There he was.
Papa Benjamin.
Staring at me from the bed as if he'd been expecting me.
And then he started to laugh.
Take that curse off me.
Give me my life back. I'll do anything, anything you say.
What been done cannot be undone.
You think spirits of earth, air, fire, water know what forgiveness means?
Intercede for me, then.
You brought it about?
Here's money. I'll give you twice as much. All I earn. All I ever hope to earn.
You have fouled the Obiah.
Death has been on you from that night.
All over the world, in the air above, you have marked spirit with a chant that summons him.
And please, please, here's a gun.
Kill me now and be done with it. I can't stand anymore.
All you have to do is shoot.
I'll write a note, sign it, that I did it myself.
Death will come. A different... slow... oh, slow...
Oh, no, no, no. I can't stand it. I won't. I won't.
Maybe if I kill you...
Maybe then the spell will be broken.
No, no, no.
Yeah, that's it. I'll kill you.
No, no, no.
And that's all, Commissioner.
Then I came here.
To the police station. You know the rest.
Well?
All right, Mr. Block.
Don't believe me, do you?
Yes, I believe you.
Not about the curse, of course.
That was your own mind.
They planted the suggestion in your mind, you did the rest.
But it's plain that you killed in self-defense.
Crazy kind of self-defense, but I think we can manage it.
We'll try.
The Commissioner managed it all right.
How is almost a story in itself.
How a detective with a moulage false face posed as Papa Benjamin
and called the Voodoo clan together and into a trap.
How they collected the evidence that proved my story.
And how they sent most of that Voodoo bunch to jail.
My name wasn't even connected with the case.
So now I'm free.
I'm living again.
I've gained weight.
The tiredness and the numbness is gone.
I took a nice vacation.
I went to Bermuda, relaxed and had fun.
Now I'm back in New Orleans at Maxims and the whole thing is forgotten.
We're opening tonight.
The place is packed.
Everybody's come to hear the chant.
Eddie Block and the chant.
We're on our way now.
Nothing can stop us.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome back on his triumphal return
Eddie Block and his chips playing for you the one and only Voodoo chant.
Look at them, Judy. They're eating it up.
Yeah.
What's the matter?
I was hoping I'd never hear this thing again.
What do you mean?
You're a trademark, yours and Eddie's.
I tried to persuade him not to do it and he wouldn't listen.
Why? You aren't imagining all that Voodoo stuff.
I don't know.
It was all in his mind and it nearly killed him.
I don't think you can put it out of your mind if it gets so easy.
When Eddie plays it again...
Oh, nice.
Hey, wait a minute.
Look at Eddie. There's something wrong.
What?
Why, he's staggering.
Eddie!
Eddie!
Judy, now wait. Here, let me pick him up.
He's probably just fainted from the excitement.
No! No, leave him alone.
He's dead.
I guess Papa Benjamin won after all.
Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robeson.
And tonight brought to you Papa Benjamin by William Irish.
Adapted for radio by John Dunkle.
With Frank Lovejoy as Eddie Block.
Louis Van Rooten as Papa Benjamin.
Harry Bartel as the Police Commissioner.
And Joan Banks as Judy.
Music was conceived and conducted by Cy Fuhr.
Next week...
You were speeding through the night on the Eastern Bull Express.
You're alone and unarmed.
And suddenly you realize that your life is in danger.
That somewhere on the train are deadly killers from whom you must escape.
Next week we escape with Harold Lamb's exciting adventure story,
Three Good Witnesses.
Good night then until the same time next week when again we offer you...
Escape.
This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.